By Moira Cullen, DFER Colorado State Director
Senate Bill 12-015, the ASSET Bill, was introduced in the Colorado legislature last week and had its first committee hearing on January 26th, passing out of the Senate Education Committee on a 4-3 party line vote. The bill enables Colorado high school graduates – regardless of their immigration status – to attend the State’s colleges and universities at a cost between in-state tuition paid by other residents, and tuition paid by students from outside Colorado.
Immigration is one of the cultural third rails of our time: few politicians regardless of party have come out to defend current immigration policy. Rightly so. Let’s all agree that immigration policy is a huge mess and there have been few sincere attempts to try to fix it. But in this burst of honesty, let’s also admit that anything that touches the third rail of immigration is an issue where emotion too often clouds judgment. And clear-eyed judgment strongly suggests that this is a bill that should be passed.
To start, let’s be clear about what is not in the bill: taxpayer subsidies. Under the ASSET bill, undocumented students will pay both their share and the State’s share of taxes. There is zero cost to Colorado’s taxpayers. There is an additional cost to the undocumented students – who will pay on average about 40% more than traditional in-state tuition. The cost of college for undocumented students is neither free nor subsidized.
Let’s also remember the bill’s focus: students already in the U.S., – usually entering no later than 12 or 13 years of age, and often far earlier – who have completed high school and both want and are academically prepared to go to college. They have not dropped out of school; they do not have criminal records. Many were brought to this country by their parents or family members at a very young age and did not make the decision on their own to enter this country illegally. Think what you will, but recognize that the decision to come to the U.S. was made for them, not by them.
Think that their parents are criminals for this choice? Ok then. We can debate the appropriate punishment for parents who have broken the law to give their families a better life. But what we can’t really debate is this: for no other crime committed by parents do we punish their children. Adults do some terrible things, and we do not diminish the rights of their children because of this conduct. Children of convicted thieves, perjurers, Wall-Street embezzlers, and serial murderers all get to vote, drive, move freely about the country, and pay in-state tuition.